Greg's 1/48 Tamiya Sherman Firefly

[papa 695]

Very nice work indeed Greg. Just pulled up my chair.

[Andy T]

Looking good Greg. Nice fix with the added strips.

[A_J_Rimmer]

Wow! That does look nice. The cardboard was a good idea, I blocked mine in with plasticard.

[Greg_147]

I've been away for a bit, but have had a chance to press on with this over the last couple of days. First step was to airbrush everything with some olive drab:





Next was some weathering on the hull. I used Mig oilbrushers, and then some textured earth. It was then given a light spray of deck-tan mixed with flat earth.



And then the tracks went on:





The next bit was the barrel camouflage. I cut out a pattern with some masking tape and spray painted the end of the barrel white. From looking at pics, this pattern was normally fairly rough, so I think this method is okay and came out better than I was expecting.





And there we are. Next steps will be weathering the upper hull, and then working on the crew.

[Guest]

And you were doing so well until you started painting the barrel white That was only done from late December of 1944, according to Mike Starmer’s book on British Army camouflage.

[Greg_147]

Oh that's annoying! The markings guide has the barrel camo on the 23rd Hussars scheme from France 1944. I assumed it was summer, but I suppose it doesn't say that specifically. I've found a couple of websites that state 'end of Summer 1944' as when the trend started, but I suppose that wouldn't help too much, even if true.

Looks like I'll be spraying over it!

[Guest]

I also used to think this was applied soon after the Normandy landings, but it seems from multiple sources that it was only from late 1944, early ’45. Luckily it’s not that hard to get rid of it again, but it is a bit of a nuisance, of course

[vizenz]

It is generally difficult to find photos with such beautifully applied barrel painting. Most of them show the painting very sloppily.
It is true that most of the photos you find of Fireflys that show this camo technique are from late 1944 or early 1945.
But there are a whole series of bad photos from Normandy where you simply cannot tell whether such painting is present or not. Often you can only see a dark or light marking roughly in the middle of the gun barrel.
In my digital photo collection I found this photo of a Sherman IC of the 22nd Armoured Brigade, 5th Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, B Squadron that is said to have been taken in Normandy in August 1944.

[Guest]

What do you know. I does look like it would have been taken in 1944, if this was spring of 1945 (warm weather, trees with leaves on), the Sherman and the Cromwells would probably be covered in spare track links. Maybe it shows an early unit attempt that later on lead to this kind of painting being made official?

[Greg_147]

Interesting indeed! Well, in the interest of staying in the remit of 'on D-Day or immediately afterwards', I'll still paint over the barrel camo on my one. I'm keeping the weathering light with the idea of making it look relatively freshly deployed, so with that in mind it's probably best that I aim for a June setting.

[Greg_147]

Well, looks like I forgot to post many updates on this one! Anyway, it's all done. I've posted some pics in the 'completed' section. Enjoy!

https://www.scale-models.co.uk/threads/bienvenue-en-france-gregs-tamiya-1-48-firefly-geoffs-d-day-80th-gb.43910/